Community Emergency Response Team

Community Emergency Response Team training is a Federal Emergency Management Agency program that educates
citizens about the hazards they face in their community and trains them in lifesaving skills. If needed following a disaster, these
citizen-responders use their training as part of a neighborhood or workplace team to help others when professional responders
are overwhelmed or not immediately available. CERT members provide immediate assistance to victims in their area, organize
spontaneous volunteers who have not had the training, and collect disaster intelligence that will assist professional responders
with prioritization and allocation of resources when they arrive.

PURPOSE OF THE PROGRAM

CERT promotes a partnering between emergency management and response agencies and the people in the community that they serve. The goal is to train members of neighborhoods and workplaces in basic response skills. Then
CERTteams are formed and maintained as part of the emergency response capability for their area.

If there is a natural or man-made event that overwhelms or delays the community's professional responders,
CERT members can assist others by applying the basic response and organizational skills that they learned during their
CERT training. These skills can help save and sustain lives until help arrives.
CERT members also can volunteer for special projects that improve a community's preparedness.

HOW IT WORKS

The basic 24-hourCERT training for community
groups is delivered in 3 hour sessions, one evening a week over an 8 week
period. Through training, citizens will learn how to prepared for disaster
emergencies, put out small fires, provide basic medical aid by treating the
three killers in opening airways, control bleeding, and treating for shock;
light search for and rescue victims safely; organize themselves and spontaneous
volunteers to be effective, and disaster psychology. A Terrorism Module is
included to educate CERT members about CBRNE, Chemical,
Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and High-yield Explosives agents. The 8th
week concludes with a mock disaster exercise where participants practice the
skills they learned throughout the course.

CERT is a positive and realistic
approach to emergency and disaster situations where citizens will be initially
on their own and their actions can make a difference. CERT is about readiness, people helping
people, rescuer safety, and doing the greatest good for the greatest number.